In recent years, many large circulation periodicals have appeared which require rapid handling of portions of the periodicals consisting of signatures which are gathered for stitching, trimmed, bundled for minimum shipping costs, and shipped. A typical operation utilizes a multitude of packer boxes each of which receives signatures seriatim from a signature supply means, opens each signature, and drops the signatures successively straddling a gathering chain that runs in front of the packer boxes and carries the complete collection of gathered signatures to the stitcher. Moreover, because of the need for highly efficient plant operations, there have been constant efforts to increase the speed at which machines operate which have required the development of new techniques for handling the signatures at all stages of a binding process.
In addition to high speed operation, many large circulation periodicals and catalogs are now demanding a degree of flexibility that has been heretofore considered impossible. This is particularly true, for instance, where it is desired for the periodical or catalog to include one or more inserts that are significantly undersized in relation to the size of a signature or are otherwise of a different nature or construction than a signature but are to be included with the periodical or catalog. This is even more the case where the inserts are to be included by incorporation during operation of a binding line which must be done without significant reduction in a cyclic rate of operation which would otherwise decrease plant efficiency thereby increasing costs while possibly failing to achieve the most efficient use of manpower, equipment and plant space. Furthermore, since the need for handling such inserts is not subject to a single, well-defined criteria there is a natural reluctance to devote significant additional manpower and/or equipment to this problem.
In addition, if any specialized equipment is required, it must not take any considerable amount of space since space is almost always at a premium in most binding lines. It will also be appreciated that any special piece of equipment must not be extremely costly or difficult to utilize in a manner wherein it is capable of operating compatibly with the remainder of the equipment normally on the binding line. Furthermore, it would be highly desirable to be able to utilize most presently existing equipment with minimal modifications or other disruptions to existing procedures.
In the case of inserts, a typical procedure includes loosely feeding the inserts into a book or magazine after the signatures have been gathered and stitched. The inserts are typically fed into the book or magazine at one or more points along the binding line. Once this has been done, the book or magazine proceeds to the mail table where it is placed in a plastic-wrap or paper bag in order to be able to ensure that the inserts remain in place.
As will be appreciated, the shrink-wrap bag is required in order to be able to maintain the inserts in association with the book or magazine. They are otherwise loosely placed within the book or magazine and, during transport and mailing, the inserts can easily become separated or fall from the book or magazine. As a result, there is additional cost in terms of material, labor and operating efficiency involved in the step of applying a plastic-wrap or paper bag.
In view of the foregoing, and as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, it would be highly desirable to be able to integrally associate inserts with a book or magazine. It would be particularly desirable to achieve this objective without the need to diminish normal binding line operating efficiencies or to otherwise disrupt the normal operation of a binding line while at the same time making it possible to eliminate the necessity for applying a shrink-wrap bag to each book or magazine. If this could be accomplished, the difficulty of choosing between the additional cost of the plastic-wrap or paper bag or the possible loss of the inserts during transport and mailing could be eliminated.
As is known, systems for the selective or demographic assembly of books or magazines and imprinting an address or personalized message are shown in commonly owned Abram et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,899,165 and Riley et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,121,818. This ability to achieve selective or demographic assembly of books or magazines has been still further developed as shown in other commonly owned patents such as Berger et al. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,768,766 and 4,789,147 and Auksi U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,815, among others. Clearly, it would also be highly desirable to be able to selectively or demographically associate inserts with books or magazines on a binding line without disrupting normal binding line operations or requiring undue capital expenditures.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the foregoing problems and achieving one or more of the resulting objects.